About the same time as my Sprint antenna mod, sometime in 2002, Verizon also had no coverage around Davison. Coupled with shoddy handsets released by Motorola around that time meant for dismal sales all around.

One day I was contemplating improved reception, especially on the horrible Motorola v120c with it's abysmal mini-retract-stub antenna, and decided to experiment. This project was simple enough, I trimmed a paperclip to a length that fit about average between 5/8 wavelength for 1900 MHz and 850MHz, attached it to the external antenna jack, and applied some tape to hold it in place.

Lo and behold, in a place where that phone normally gets no signal at all, it's suddenly picking up 1 to 2 bars! The only thing missing was the use of duct tape, but that wouldn't let you see through to the antenna jack!